It seems much more like an interceptor or fighter bomber. A gun seems a bit superfluous in those roles. I wouldn’t expect an F-111 to put down suppressing fire or an f-14 to gun down an opposing fighter, even though technically the latter was capable of it. But in an era of 180 degree 60G AAMs you have to wonder if there are going to be dogfights that take more than a half turn to resolve.
The F-35A mounts external AIM-9X. For a capability which _requires them_ to enter into potential threat SAM WEZ with radars all around them, meaning just being there, never mind any yankin' and bankin', simply flashes everything to everyone in Full Monte stupid mode.
Because Americans, I'm pretty well convinced, are stupid.
Now, ask yourself what happens when your PL-17 turns out to be a 700km++ ranged weapon in the same way that the 100km ranged Patriot has morphed into a 300km SASR?
Will an E-2/3/7 see a J-20, head-on, in time or at all, sufficient to turn F-22s, available in tiny, diminishing, numbers from their forward placed BARCAP orbits to engage the WS-15 powered J-20, motoring along at Mach 2 and 70,000ft?
This is where fuel, drag and signature cross the tactical utility threshold line. Not some 'three circles at full power' fight condition in a HOB missile vs. first guns opportunity world.
I am reminded of a story about John Boyd, pioneer of EM theory and all round 'Nobody can stay on my six for more than 10 seconds or a 100 dollar bill is theirs to own...'
Some crayon eater (USMC Steve Canyon) thought he was good enough to grab that Benjamin from The Master's twitching fist and came looking for a fight. Challenge accepted, six engagements worth of face shot at 6nm later and "What the hell was that?! Is there no honor in the USAF?" at the o'club bar.
To which the response was total Cool Hand Luked: "Honor down, Kill Ratio Up, You Lose!"
The world Boyd was speaking to lived in an ALASCA age (albeit SARH at the time) and this would go on to be proven in Vietnam where a combination of stupid, inflexible, tactical formations (Fluid Four, Lead Only Shooter) and the weight/drag/scatter of the SUU-16/23 meant that nobody, when asked, wanted a gun more than the equivalent weight in fuel or working missiles.
Meaning the Old Man knew that the time of proving something, gunzo, was done.
Today, almost 50 years later, if we wanted to design something to pop a canopy like a pimple, we would do so with a laser or an MSDM type weapon, probably similar to a SRAAM/Tail Dog, at scale for a 1-1.5nm engagement. And you would only accept even that much of a system penalty if it was already on the jet, as a last chance 'no chaff, no jaff, no TRD, no problem!' buckler for inbound threat missiles.
Why do you think a UOR was written up for 'stealth tanks and IRST on the rapid!' if the J-20 was not found to be a credible Tanker/ISR/BMC2 killer which could _out range_ the AMRAAM equipped F-22?
It certainly was not an artifact of the PL-15. That missile is a Sparrow class, 500lb, weapon with likely a very real 145km range advantage (compared to a believable 90km AIM-120D3 equivalent, no brochure nonsense...).
Which means your APG-77 is detecting that stealth jet at compatible distances.
Until suddenly it's not.
What changed? HALE based AEW&C as Divine/Soaring Eagles with multi-aperture UHF radar and BTH ranges of over 1,000km for one. The Dragons don't have to detect the Raptors to steer around them. They just have to accept picture data from an asset tracking it's own, opposite number, from many times as far. Assuming onboard systems cannot ALR-94 do so.
No, an LRM pole suddenly becomes a VLM or even ULM as a 'killer of lighthouses' shining all manner of LINK-16, MADL, and other assorted JTRS datalink noise as well as this giant Sauron's Eye primary sensor aperture.
In theory, you could even take this as far as a radar (Luditance) or optical (Teal Ruby) SATWACS cuer as the equivalent to our SBIRS/HBTSS network. At that point, with a decent FPA imager, you can hunt B-21s from beyond AGM-158B2 (JASSM-XR) release points.
And suddenly the F-22 needs both a longwave IRST that can see high-fast targets at ranges beyond the APG-77's ability to tag them and enough gas to cut off the threat before it can sling torpedo spreads of these mega missiles from beyond the range of the Sentry or Wedgetail to even see the launch wickedly coming their way.
AIM-260, which is also likely just a repackaged, Sparrow class, kinematic (8", 500lbs) in a compatible-with-AMRAAM carriage box (strakes not wings), using late model EOM midcourse to do 'steering outcomes based on friction ratios under reduced gravity loads' (microgravity zones at high altitudes may be more common than is admitted) to gain considerable kinematic efficiencies, can likely make up for some but not all of this.
Again, especially if the only threats which are easily spotted at these distances are either RF searchlight equivalents. Or very hot, very fast, supercruising, missileers, designed to engage those HVAA targets at 1,000km.
And suddenly, you have to start wondering what those massive side gondolas on the AARGM-ER really do/mean...
Again, my own take is that we've known how vulnerable AEW&C are to stealth attack for quite awhile, and thus Ukraine and the A-50s is not a surprise but a planned outcome.
Similarly, the PL-17 should not be shocking, in and of itself. What is important here is that the Chinese, like the Russians, are not lost in WWII Glory Daze and thus tend to kill carriers and airbases with ASCM/ASBM as Really Big Missiles. Certainly, that is what they are going to use to wipe out Taiwan's ADGE and ROCAF, on the ground.
So they don't should not give a damn about AWACS as some kind of all-seeing, vectoring, BMC2 platform. Because BMD/CMD is more about location of the defensive HiMADS site relative to the ground track or target footprint which itself may only be 2-3nm across. Go ahead and see those DF-11/15/16/21C/CH-191/CJ-10/CJ-20 coming. Between saturation numbers and kinematic offsets, having an eye in the sky is unimportant.
Yet, in a world where they divide A2AD up their own (ICD) defensive engagement zones as outer: ballistics, middle: bombers/subs, and inner: coastal ASCM batteries; they may worry about OUR ability to penetrate with intelligent ALCM that can plink-plink their battery sites.
UHF multi-static HALE radars, cuing for ULM interceptors, launched from beyond detection range by...anyone really, could be an answer to that. Especially if USAF platforms like the B-21 are not nearly as topside = hotside invisible as they would like to have you believe.
Dumb people invest in stupid ideas. And the Chinese, who are not dumb, would not be spending money looking at very or ultra longrange AAMs and high thermal cycle efficiency engines to enable supercruise in the Mach 2 @ U-2 heights if they didn't think they could get something from it.
